(FORTUNE Magazine) – Voters in the April 5 parliamentary elections will have a host of celebrities to choose from. Among them: Luciano Benetton, co-founder and managing director of the Treviso clothier that bears his name; Alessandra Mussolini of Naples, granddaughter of Il Duce; Moanna Pozzi, a stripper from Genoa; and La Cicciolina, the porn star running for reelection in Rome. Like Americans, Italians aren't averse to electing celebrities with few obvious qualifications for the job. But political parties are relying on star quality now more than ever. Disgusted voters doubt that the politicians they've tolerated for so long can lead them into a new Europe. Unemployment is running at around 11%, inflation is over 6%, the trade deficit is greater than the total GDP, and the economy is expected to grow an anemic 1.7% this year. Benetton, a Republican, is considered a serious contender. Mussolini, who is also Sophia Loren's niece, is a candidate of the extreme right-wing Italian Social Movement -- which should please Gramps, a portrait of whom is partially visible behind her in the photo below. She is given a good chance. Cicciolina and Pozzi are running on the Party of Love ticket in different districts. Pundits haven't written off either of them. Patrick McCarthy, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University's Bologna campus, offers two possible explanations: ''A strong protest vote and a cynical Catholic tolerance of sexual weakness.'' - R.T.